After eight years of hard work, the day has finally arrived. Today, September 14, the Haiku project has released its very first alpha release. With the goal of recreating one of the most beloved operating systems in history, the BeOS, they took on no small task, but it seems as if everything is finally starting to come together. Let's talk about the history of the BeOS, where Haiku comes from, and what the Alpha is like.

Not only that, but the hard disk footprint is small as well. Haiku really shines at stuff like this: small, fast, running so well especially on old hardware. I always chuckle when someone says "look at how fast they made X". Yeah yeah, Haiku can still boot in 10 seconds (if it boots, that is :-).

The cool thing is that alot of the hardware support can be added using open source components; CUPS and Gutenprint. I'm surprised though that they didn't port the OpenBSD networking stack across given the massive array of network devices which it supports.

I honestly believe that if they got Haiku-OS to UNIX 2003/POSIX compliance, improved the hardware support - it would be an unbeatable system for the desktop. Sure, there are issues like multi-user but they can be sorted out in time - but alot of the big lifting like interface design, standards and consistency have already been worked out.

Maybe I'm dreamy but I'd love to see an x86 vendor create a business model on it akin to the Macintosh world

One of the points of Haiku is to do things the right way, and deliver it 'when it's done'. By just porting stuff you only add things that 'kind of' fits instead of the perfect match.
For instance Haiku is mostly based on object orientation and C++, but most available code is in C.

Another big point is that code should be readable like a book, which very few projects can live up to. (Some BSD's do though.)

One of the points of Haiku is to do things the right way, and deliver it 'when it's done'. By just porting stuff you only add things that 'kind of' fits instead of the perfect match.
For instance Haiku is mostly based on object orientation and C++, but most available code is in C.

Another big point is that code should be readable like a book, which very few projects can live up to. (Some BSD's do though.)

True; I was just thinking then - have they looked at libdispatch/grand central like path for a future release? just looking at all the changes and the pipe line of improvements; it has all the excitement back in the R4's of BeOS.

I'm surprised though that they didn't port the OpenBSD networking stack across given the massive array of network devices which it supports.

The Haiku network stack is inspired by BSD stack. It also has a compatibility layer, so that a BSD LAN driver can just be compiled under Haiku with minimal code change. The WiFi stack (in development and expected in a few months) is actually based on FreeBSD 8 WLAN stack.

The Haiku network stack is inspired by BSD stack. It also has a compatibility layer, so that a BSD LAN driver can just be compiled under Haiku with minimal code change. The WiFi stack (in development and expected in a few months) is actually based on FreeBSD 8 WLAN stack.

So all things being equal - one could see Atheros support via Madwifi? that would be awesome. Hopefully that'll also mean support for Intels latest wireless chipsets too